Category Archives: Science for Year 6

These emergency lesson plans for Year 6 Science are only to be used by supply teachers who are faced with no planning or easily accessible resources. Also to be used following the guidance notes here.

Topic

Lesson Plan

Interdependence and adaptation

Food chains: always starts with the producer, a plant, and keep the consumers in the same habitat. Ask which are prey/predator. Draw/label 3 food chains.

Micro-organisms

Mouldy food: what is mould? Micro-organisms which are too small to be seen individually. Table different methods that are used in supermarkets/in the home to preserve food. How do we store food to help prevent decay/these micro-organisms growing?

Micro-organisms

Produce a hygiene rules poster for the school canteen staff, after discussion about hygiene in the kitchen.

More about dissolving

Present children with a table of results (fictitious but sensible) of length of time taken for clothes to dry on the washing line at different times of the day/year. Ask children first of all to predict and explain predictions, and then they are to present results on a graph. (This isn't obviously about dissolving, but within this unit they must plan fair test, repeat observations and evaluate, representing data on graphs and interpreting!) Show different items of clothes, and ask children to reason why socks though smaller than T-shirts, took longer to dry whatever the time. (Materials.)

Reversible and irreversible changes

Give children a list of materials which can be mixed with water. Children to classify in a table those that can't be separated, those they would filter and those they would separate by evaporation. Centrifugal force introduction for more able?

Forces in action

Make a spinner, two paper strips 10cm x 2cm, joined with 1 paperclip and time the fall (from a decent height!) Ask children to predict whether it will fall more quickly/slowly with different lengths of wings. Work through whole experiment, fair test, results, graph, conclusion.

Forces in action

Make a spinner, two paper strips 10cm x 2cm, joined with 1 paperclip and time the fall (from a decent height!) Ask children to predict whether it will fall more quickly/slowly with different numbers of paperclips (weight). Work through whole experiment, results, graph, conclusion.

How we see things

How light travels. Design a system by which you could see round corners, secret agent!

Changing circuits

Draw a number of circuits on the board for the children to say if they will/will not work, and explain. Visit blogz circuits and work through activities, if you have access to a computer with Flash.

Enquiry in environmental and technological contexts

Post SATs stuff for Year 6! Ask the children to create a scientific question, give them examples, that they then can plan how to answer. Plan the whole experiment, time scales, equipment needed, predictions. Focus on making sure it is a fair test and how to make absolutely certain that their investigations will actually answer their question, rather than a spin-off idea. Example lines of enquiry: how to make my light come on when I enter my house? (Pressure switches in circuits) Does the level of exposure to sunlight through the year affect the autumnal colour of a leaf? These questions will not be answered in your lesson! They are planning units, making children think about all factors and differentials in an investigation.